Avatar: The Last Airbender Review/Transcript
Sokka: 'Go back to the Fire Nation! *throws rock at Fire Nation Man* ''(Intro) I don't know if I'm spoiling the rest of the list or anything, but, Avatar: The Last Airbender ''is my favorite Nicktoon of all time. It's probably ''still ''in my "Top 5 Favorite Cartoons of All Time," and it's baffling to me that this of all shows aired on Nickelodeon. Especially in 2005. This is not the kind of show that airs on Nickelodeon. Ever. Nickelodeon...absolutely had more serious shows in the past, and it wasn't all comedy as it's reputed to be. They'd have their ''Hey Arnold!'s and As Told by Ginger's, but this is something that's completely different than anything that's ever been on the network before, and to be honest...since. Avatar: The Last Airbender ''is a high-fantasy, martial arts series. that talks about deep subject matter and takes itself more seriously than just about any other cartoon that I've ever watched. This is from the network that started with a show about babies going on "wild adventures" and a psychopathic Chihuahua yelling at a fat, red cat. ''Avatar ''was also serialized and took heavy influence from anime, on a network that had an increasingly hard time keeping episodes in order when first airing them. It also came out in the wake of ''Spongebob, which had permanently moved the direction of the network. Avatar: The Last Airbender is more or less the black sheep of the Nicktoons lineup, to the point where it's easy to forget that it's an official Nicktoon. "Black sheep" is usually a...derogatory term, but I think it's a...good term here. I have no idea why Nickelodeon greenlit this show, except for the fact that it's fantastic. I cannot praise Avatar: The Last Airbender ''enough. It is legitimately one of the few cartoons that I would give a ten out of ten. Even episodes that are considered bad like "The Great Divide," aren't really all that bad. And those more mediocre episodes are balanced out by the other 95% of the series, which is just...'fantastic. Don't get me wrong, the first book of the series isn't as good as the other two. It's a little bit slower as most first seasons are, but we do get introduced to the world and all of its characters. Even from the start, Avatar ''showed that it was at a high caliber, with characters that had...such a unique complexity to them. I don't even know where to begin with this one to be honest, and for a different reason than ''Spongebob ''or ''Rugrats. There are only three seasons here, and just over 60 episodes, but there is so much quality contained within. I guess we should start with the art style. This is gonna be one of my more...strange opinions, although I do recognize that it is unpopular, distinguishing between anime and Western animation especially as we're going to the 2020s is, stupid and should no longer be done. I personally have a feeling that people only create distinction between anime and Western animation so they can say: "No, I don't watch cartoons, I watch anime." As time goes on, the distinction gets less and less useful as Western cartoons have gotten more of an anime influence, with shows like Avatar ''and ''Teen Titans. And, anime itself has had more of a Western influence as well. If the only reason that you would call a show "not anime" is because it wasn't made in a particular country, that's stupid. Creating a term for something just because it's made in a specific region...it's not helpful, whatsoever. Kinda like how we have Japanese RPGs that weren't made in Japan, we have Japanese cartoons...that weren't made in Japan. And Avatar ''is probably a good example of such. ''Avatar ''takes the techniques and styles from anime and utilizes them to great effect. The action within looks better than I've seen in ''so ''many other cartoons. Even though martial arts series were getting to be more and more popular around this time with ''Jackie Chan Adventures ''and ''Xiaolin Showdown, Avatar ''stood as king because it realized something that those shows did not. A '''good '''martial arts show or movie, or, whatever, is not all about constant action and constant fighting. The best martial arts media or shows take time to be quiet and delve into the philosophy of it. Martial arts is about mentality just as much as it is about physicality, and ''Avatar ''is the only show that really delved 'deeply 'into that. Shows like ''Xiaolin Showdown '''tried, but, in hindsight, it's ''amazing'' to how much Xiaolin Showdown ''just feels like a beta ''Avatar. Like ''Avatar ''saw ''Xiaolin Showdown ''and decided to make it a ''hundred times better. I-I don't hate ''Xiaolin Showdown, by the way. When you come out in the same genre as Avatar, and you're the same time as Avatar, let's just say you're gonna get hurt. The characters within Avatar ''are just ''too strong. If you've seen this show, chances are, at least one of the characters within it is going to be among your favorite of all time. From Toph's sarcastic attitude to Aang's joy of the world, to Sokka's quirky humor that they removed from the movie for a reason that I cannot comprehend. I could go on and on, but I don't wanna just list a long string of characters, because I could list just about 'every single '''one of them. Even the more minor characters like Bumi or Jet stand out strongly, each of them bursting with personality, and a charisma that you don't often see in cartoons. For me though, my absolute favorites would have to be Zuko and Iroh. Especially Iroh. Iroh himself, is just one of the most charming and wisest characters that you'll ever meet in any piece of media, ever. And Zuko, struggling to find his way and reclaim his lost honor is quite honestly a story that anyone can relate to. One thing that this show is a master of is tone and tension, and, even sometimes in other great series like ''Samurai Jack, that can be something...that shows can struggle with. ''Avatar '''always ''knows when to be funny or when to be serious, and they know what to make you feel and exactly how to make you feel it. One of the greatest episodes of the series is "The Chase," where are our heroes are being chased down by some of the villains. Relentlessly. We see that no matter where they go, they are pursued and denied sleep, turning on each other more and more, as they get more and more deranged. Toph: '''I didn't count you. You know...no bending and all. '''Sokka: ''I can still fight!!!'' Toph: 'Okay. Three...on three plus Sokka. ''(Sokka turns red and growls) And then there's Azula. Azula is one of the most hateable characters of all time, and for 'all '''of the right reasons. She is delightfully evil and she knows how to hit ''anyone's emotional pressure points, to just make them crumble. And she's able to do it without ever becoming cartoonish. I don't know if it's a bad thing or a good thing that she never made it into the movie. And...yeah, I suppose we should talk about that. Like I said, Avatar,'' ''is the black sheep of the Nickelodeon lineup. Black sheeps are usually considered far too different to be liked from the hardcore fans...and I can see that...being sorta true here, I'm sure there were plenty of people who were avid watchers of Nickelodeon, that didn't wanna watch something so...serious, let's say. ''Avatar ''was a black sheep because it took a bigger step than most other Nickelodeon shows. It did '''so '''much that '''so many others did not, doing things that no other series was willing to do. Even shows like Hey Arnold!. And...Avatar, like many Nicktoons before it and since, was punished by the network. Like, one great mistake...was making a serialized series. I cannot overstate how important streaming and digital distribution was, for shows like Avatar. If you missed an episode of Avatar back in the day and didn't catch a rerun by the time it came on, well, you were shit out of luck and you were completely lost on the plot. This is ''not ''the kind of show that you can watch out of order, even slightly. And the longer a show like this goes on, the harder and harder it is to attract a new audience. I can see why they eventually booted Korra ''to a streaming service. I mean, I don't fully agree with what they did or how they did it, but, I ''understood it at least. This was one of the reasons why it took so long for anime to get a foothold here in the States as well. Nowadays, you can just buy the complete series collection on DVD, but when the show was still airing, that was not possible. I wasn't able to watch the entire series in order until I was an adult, basically, doing my review show. I can see why Nickelodeon didn't want much to do with shows like these in the future, considering ordering episodes...used to be a...very difficult problem with networks. Especially Nickelodeon because Nickelodeon doesn't know how to count. The movie on the other hand, is something that I ''can't ''understand. You may or may not have heard this, but the Avatar ''live-action movie is terrible. A lot of people lay the blame at the director, M. Night Shyamalan, for the disaster that it became, and he certainly is not innocent for the end product. But let's not beat around the bush here. The studio was 'far 'more to blame than Shyamalan ever was. First of all, the fact that they even 'hired 'M. Night Shyamalan for this was very telling. It's commonly understood that ''The Last Airbender ''movie sunk Shyamalan's reputation completely. But at that time, he wasn't still "the next Spielberg." No, he was someone who had increasingly bad films throughout the ''entire decade, and people knew that this movie was going to bomb, before it even came out. Because he was seen as "a has-been, past his prime." It feels very much like Nickelodeon wanted this film to fail, considering that the studio's "actions" could be seen as sabotage. After they got some test scenes back from the movie, the studio saw how expensive this would be and basically moved the entire film...to another country and drastically ''cut the budget. Which is why in many scenes, there seem to be lower, or, outright missing effects. The six Earth benders shooting...one small boulder is a good note of that. I don't wanna get...too deep into the film now, there may be a time in the future when I talk about the film by itself, but I thought it'd be worth at least mentioning here. I would '''highly '''recommend ''Avatar: The Last Airbender. If you're not into this car...toon, usually I'd still recommend picking it up. It really makes a good introduction to the more story-focused serialized cartoons, since it has plenty of moments of humor and some episodes are very light-hearted. Throughout all of it, the show inspires and captures the imagination, and even to this day, there is ''no ''other show like it. Yes, including its sequel series, which we will get to later. 'Ikki: '''Asami? Did you know Korra likes Mako? ''(Korra screams and a background of fire and lightning appears behind her) 'Announcer: '''Next on Nickelodeon... ''(Shows clip of the Catscratch intro) (End Credits Theme: "Ending" from the Avatar: The Last Airbender soundtrack) Category:Nick-o-Rama Category:Transcripts